[Illustration: WILD GEESE ALIGHTING AT FIFTEEN YARDS
(Take the upper pair right-and-left, leaving the nearer geese for second gun.)]
Within thirty-six hours we had secured sixty-two geese and over two hundred ducks. For four guns, under favouring conditions, this would have been no very special result; but to-day the fowl were all alert and restless at the prospect of a coming change. The keynote had already been sounded that first day, when the _tormenta_ burst, and when the long drought ended on the very morning we had selected to commence our operations. Had the weather held for a single week ... but why dwell on it? The point must be clear enough. No more geese were got that year. Let us conclude with a few ornithological observations made during succeeding days. On November 30, after three days of stormy weather, with tremendous bursts of rainfall, there commenced one of the most remarkable bird-migrations we have witnessed. From early morn till night (and all the following day) cloud upon cloud of ducks kept streaming overhead from the westward. Frequently a score of packs would be in view at once--never were the heavens clear; and all coming from precisely the same direction and travelling in parallel lines to the east. Their course seemed to indicate that these migrants (avoiding the overland route across Spain which would involve passing over her great cordilleras, say 10,000 feet) had travelled south by the coast-line as far as the latitude of Cape St. Vincent. Thence they "hauled their wind" and bore up on an easterly course which brought them direct into the great marismas of the Guadalquivir.[17]
We had acquired this waste of marsh and mud-flat and were keen to "go and possess it." Initial difficulties arose to confront us. Though the whole region now belonged to us (_i.e._ the rights of chase, and it boasts but little other value) yet our possession was to be met by some opposition.
It was all very natural, delightfully human, and despite the annoyance, captivated our sympathy. Local fowlers, accustomed from immemorial times to earn a scant living by shooting for market the wildfowl of the wilderness, resented this acquisition of exclusive rights. Our scattered guards were overawed, our reed-built huts were burned, and threats reached us--not to mention a casual bullet or two ricochetting in wild bounds across the watery waste. That one quality, however, above mentioned--sympathy--is the passport to Spanish hearts, and thereby, together with courtesy and fair-dealing, the erstwhile insurgents in brief time became the best of friends.